Reclamation and Recycling

Whilst contractors were working here, I always tried to keep the place tidy.  Now, with some contractors this was impossible (see this entry, for instance, or this one), but in general I managed it. At times it almost got too much for me, especially with the way that most contractors just throw the rubbish down without thinking about it.  I used to pick up nails and screws on the scaffolding and I was delighted to supply a hundred copper nails once to keep work going when the roofer ran out!

Simply separating rubbish and scrap made a huge difference to the general tidiness, and made it much easier when I went to the scrap merchant.  These visits have made me a bit over £350, most of it from lead, but there is also a good satisfaction at everything which does not go to landfill or free to the council tip. A lot of old wood was burnt outside, and then more was used on the woodburner in the winter; a pile of old (untreated) rafters and batten still awaits a similar fate next winter, together with the remains of the trees from the front garden.

One particular thing that got recycled were the 10 litre tubs for the lime mortar and plaster we used for the plastering.  I had to get all this in tubs - we couldn't even get the 950kg pallet of 45 tubs onto the pavement so it had to be left in the road; then they all had to be moved inside by hand without delay. (I once had a much cheaper 950kg bulk bag and almost broke my back putting that into tubs just to get it inside...)  Given that I probably had 13 or 14 deliveries from Mike Wye, you can see that I had well over 500 tubs plus lids; these tubs can be quite useful, but if you're not careful you end up with dozens of tubs filled with hardcore or rubbish to be taken to the tip.  I did manage to send a couple of pallet loads (see left) back to Mike Wye for a small rebate but that really was hard work for little reward.  Consequently, when we moved in, I got a recycling bin and started putting 15 tubs and lids in each fortnight!  Long job, but we're there now.

During this project I have found a great deal of satisfaction in re-using items, and the list is now quite long.  The first thing was a bit of 3"x2" oak ceiling joist which I cut out to make the loft hatchway; within 30 minutes this had been re-used as a replacement for a section of the adjacent wall plate which had rotted (due to the prolonged roof leak).

I did numerous repairs to the structure of the house, using (as appropriate) old bricks and stone found around the place.  In particular, some of the stone which I used to fill the old kitchen doorway (under the window, photo right) was found just inside under the old kitchen floor where it had been the foundation for an internal wall.

Although I replaced the old 2.5" cast iron downpipes with 3" (to match the wider 5" gutters which I considered necessary), I was able to re-use two sections of the 2.5" for places where it didn't join to the guttering, one for the bathroom outlet (where the old piece was cracked lengthwise) and the other on the extension.  Both were wire-brushed and painted copiously with Hammerite.

The LBC said that I had to re-use the old door furniture on the new front door, but apart from the (original?) doctor's knocker, that was not feasible - the knobs were from internal doors and the 4" letter plate was far too narrow for modern use. 

The new extension has several re-used items.  Most significantly Jane and I reclaimed 1800 bricks from the demolition rubble (and only had to buy about 200 more to match), whilst the chimney is topped with a yellow pot from the original back chimney (this chimney pot spent a year acting as the kitchen rubbish bin!). The old internal ledged and braced door to the utility has been refitted at the other end of a new wall in the same position, with the original Suffolk latch fitted, and the redundant external ledged and braced door is also repaired and repainted, ready to be fitted to a pair of pintles on limestone blocks which I bought at the local reclamation yard.  This will be one of the pair of back gates; the other matching door/gate was obtained as a swap for some old glass (thanks JohnB) and is already fitted.  Also, as I have mentioned before, the casement window in the extension was a major repair which I did myself, utilizing part of the frame of the replaced front sash window, plus some old wavy glass from two broken sash windows.

Of course, we had to buy a lot of reclaimed Welsh slates for the roofs, but we did re-use what we could, although that was a pitifully small percentage.  Another reclamation yard purchase was the almost new sash window in the extension (on the left of the photo, left) which we bought for £95 including delivery - absolute bargain!

So, I'm now working on the garden walls, again using (free) stone from around the site, including the weathered stone from the front wall where the driveway now goes.  Next week I'll do another run to the scrap merchant with the last load of brass and iron, including the old Crittal door and windows.  Then, when I have also built the stone wall (using the stone from the front wall where the driveway was made), the garden might look a bit tidier.

Rain, Rain, Rain

I asked the other week why we British always talk about the weather.  Well, after the rain of the last week I think I can now answer the question - it's because the weather is so b****y awful.  April and May were bad enough but I think we all thought that the heatwave at the end of May heralded the start of summer.  Wrong!  I have managed to get a small amount of work done outside, but nowhere near as much as I had hoped.  Right now the rain has eased but it's all muddy underfoot in my garden builder's yard and everywhere is dripping.

What I have achieved is to make a deep concrete plinth (right) on which to mount a cast iron lamp-post, and I've laid a concrete foundation for the wall beside the back gate, together with some block work where the wall itself will be buried in the slope of the garden (no point in burying good faced limestone!).  Although they seem small, these two structures together consumed a whole one tonne bag of ballast!  There is just the small matter of the wall itself to be built, plus 14 yards of foundation and retaining wall for the garden beside the house.

Mind you, I have been very busy on other things in the last ten days.  We had a church 1950's party which had to be held inside as it was so cold (quite apart from the occasional shower) and we've spent some time looking after our dear 17 month grandson.  Firstly we took him (without his parents) to a large family do in London where the sheer numbers could have fazed him, but he survived remarkably well and we returned home as proud grandparents (although we also acknowledge our age and consequent tiredness).  Then we looked after him for a whole day at our house, when he was cheerful, fun and communicative (and we got even more tired!).  He has reached a reasoning point, where he can work out a problem for himself.  For instance, he has been known to push a chair to the kitchen work top so that he can climb up onto the work top!  The other day he stood near our front door and then at me and asked to be picked up.  It then became obvious that he only wanted to be higher so that he (or I) could open the front door as he knew the latch was well out of his reach.

I have also recently received direct from the publishers a copy of a new Haynes Manual called "Period Property - care and repair of old houses".  This was especially good because it was free: it contains some photos of the limecrete floor in this house.  Then the author, Ian Rock, came to see this house as he was so interested by this blog and wanted to see what had been done to the house. [Edit - they now have a website http://www.period-house.com/]

A Genuine Jersey Holiday

It has been a bit quiet here recently.  This is partly due to a general malaise on my part, partly because I have been doing odd little jobs which aren't worth reporting, and most importantly because we have just had a week's holiday in Jersey.  This was our first overseas holiday in almost four years, so it was about time!

Jersey is interesting.  Many buildings are made of granite, and they seem to care more than my local council about the old look of the place, especially away from St Helier.  In consequence, there was a lot of work being done by local builders using granite, although I suspect not with lime mortar.  Actually, since granite is (I think) not porous like limestone, I'm not even sure if lime mortar is as necessary as it is with limestone.  There was also a significant amount of concrete work in evidence, much of it dating from the German occupation in WWII.  They used slave labour to fortify the place against an Allied invasion which must have been a huge drain on their resources; however this was totally wasted as the Allies had not the slightest intention of invading the islands.  One of the still useful legacies is a high sea wall (built to prevent tanks being landed) which goes all the way along the five mile beach at the west of the island.

If you are thinking of going to Jersey (as a tourist rather than occupier!!), I advise you not to go in July or August if you want to drive around.  The roads are small, junctions have poor visibility and parking can be difficult.  I think that the roads and junctions are deliberately never improved as the maximum speed limit is 40mph (and can often be 30 or 20!) and so the road design is effectively a cheap means to regulate traffic; if you have an accident at those speeds, it is probably rare to even injure someone.  The road signs leave something to be desired; they seem to fall between UK and French standards, so often a junction is signed in advance but not at the junction itself.  The parking would have been tiresome in the peak times, but we were able to park quite easily, even in St Helier.  These things were not really a problem in May, but we kept on asking ourselves "what would this be like in August?".

Our visit occurred during the Jersey Food Festival; we spent the only really wet afternoon in a posh hotel watching and tasting cookery demonstrations (and I tasted my first oyster).  A simple food I now love is the boiled Jersey Royal potato - delicious with butter.

One place we visited was Jersey Dairy Ltd - see photo of their new factory right.  They are effectively the only exporter of dairy products from the island.  (My thanks to Eamonn the MD for the tour, the free ice-cream tasting was great!)  One little-known fact is that under current rules the Channel Islands are not protected by labelling regulations, and so if you have a single half breed Jersey cow in your herd anywhere in the UK, you can sell all your milk as "Channel Island milk" or "Jersey milk".  Apparently most supermarkets use this ploy on lots of dairy products to confuse consumers, which seems a bit underhand but is quite legal.  To avoid it you should look for a little logo which says "Genuine Jersey" (and I think there's an equivalent for Guernsey); this logo IS protected and means what it says.  The Jersey cows on the island are registered and protected in order to maintain the purity of the breed, unlike on the mainland here.

By the way, we also visited a farm: the Jersey cows are ever so sweet and friendly!

Why do the British always talk about the weather?

It's a British stereotype, isn't it?  Put a group of Brits in any social setting and the standard way to break the ice is to start a conversation about the weather.  Being British, the odds are that the conversation will not actually progress much past the weather.  If the group were French, American, Israeli or African, the odds are that you wouldn't leave until you had shared your life stories and been invited to stay should you ever pass near their home.  (I met a couple from Hawaii recently who gave me their card and said that I must drop by if I ever go to Hawaii!  Being Americans, I reckon they meant it, but I doubt that I will take them up on it.)  But we just talk about the weather.  Nice day, isn't it?  Hasn't it rained a lot recently?  Last night was a bit parky.  What's the forecast for tomorrow?

I think a lot of it is that we are just not used to sharing personal information verbally.  This seems odd, considering that most people seem to be happy to share all sorts of stuff with complete strangers on the internet (which I personally reckon is pretty unwise).  The weather is always unpredictable and seems a safe topic of conversation; when I was younger we were not allowed at family mealtimes to talk about cars, work, school, sport, religion or politics, which pretty well left the weather as the only topic!

So why am I writing about talking about the weather?  Well, I have lots of work that I'd like to do outside and haven't been able to because of the weather we've been having.  Right now I have stone walls to build, concrete and paving slabs to lay, plaster to mix (for inside) and things to sand and paint.  I can't really even tidy up the extension as most of it has to go in the shed which is on the far side of a sea of mud (which is where a lawn might be next year).  I made a start yesterday (Friday) by finishing one end of my low wall beside the drive and starting the foundations for the wall beside the front door, but there's a long way to go.

I now realise just how good the weather was last year, as I was able to take my pick of jobs according to priority, not according to the weather, and could do lots of messy jobs like sanding doors outside in the sun.  The only good side of it is that the grass seed which I sowed in hope during March has come up well - the irony is that I decided not to lay turf as I thought that the hosepipe ban would mean that it would dry up...

Another Limecrete Floor

A slight diversion from our house, to the church across the road where they are in the process of laying a limecrete floor in part the church.  This is noteworthy as all too often ignorance wins and a concrete slab gets laid, or the flagstones are sealed (so why bother with a breathable floor underneath?). I found a year ago that there was very little detailed guidance on-line when researching the design of our limecrete floor, so I make no apologies for giving such detail here again.

The church architect got the design of the floor from Ty-Mawr, who are one of the main lime suppliers in this country (I used Mike Wye but there are others...).  The floor design is basically the same as the one I laid in the kitchen here (see this post last year), apart from using Recycled Foamed Glass (RFG) instead of light expanded clay aggregate (LECA).  In detail, from the bottom up, there is a geotextile membrane, 200mm of (lightly compacted) loosefill aggregate of RFG, another layer of membrane, then a 3:1 mix of RFG and NHL5 to form the slab (I think, 150mm thick).

The slab has now been laid by The Limecrete Company and looks impressive (right).  The edges have a vertical inch thick piece of woodwool, whose function I have yet to understand but it might be related to crack prevention.  There will be underfloor heating (UFH) pipes added with a 3 inch Glaster screed and 20mm Creeton limestone tiles on top, although this heating will not be connected until a new boiler is fitted in a later phase. This work is the second stage (of about four!) of renovating the church; phase 1 was electrics, lighting, sound and internal redecoration.  The next phases will also include installing toilets and a servery, and levelling the entire floor with the same sort of floor with UFH (and chairs instead of Victorian pews).

Doing Things Wrongly

I do hate doing things wrongly.  I always have [Edit - I mean "I've always hated doing things wrongly", not "I've always done things wrongly"!].  In particular, on this house I have wanted to "do it right" and, mostly, I think I have succeeded.  I'm going to live in this house for years and I hate the idea of continuously seeing something I did wrongly and thinking "I wish I'd done that better".  There have been one or two places where it's not perfect and I've persuaded myself to live with them as they "add character" (great excuse for old buildings).

Now, I've just painted something wrongly.  I've been using satin finish paint on the woodwork in the new extension and it looks very nice.  It's a cream colour which is basically the colour of the old woodwork and it sets the doors off nicely against the white of the plaster.  I've done both sides and the frame of the door from the kitchen into the extension (see previous picture) and I had done one and a half sides of the door into the utility when I ran out of paint.  So, on Tuesday at a local well-known store, I bought a second tin after some considerable searching for the right type; I returned home with my prize and continued the task, finishing off the first coat on the half finished door, and then doing a second coat on the side I'd already done as it looked a bit thin.  For good measure I did the door frame and also some touch up in a few places on another door frame.  All seemed well until I went to wash the brushes; I was sure that satin finish paint is washed in warm soapy water but, to my horror, I found that nothing happened apart from a mess of globules.  Check the tin - "clean brushes in white spirit" - so, out with the white spirit and still I didn't catch on. 

Later, I checked my work and found that it hadn't dried.  This was odd as satin finish is quite quick drying.  Looking at the door I suddenly realized.  It was still glossy.  With a sinking heart I checked the tin.  "Full Gloss." All is explained.  B****r!

I could leave the one side in gloss but I just don't like gloss paint internally; if I do leave it, then I'll forever look at it and be reminded of my own stupidity.  There seems nowhere else to go but back to the store and buy a tin of the correct stuff, and then forget that Tuesday ever happened. Apart from wasting my time and £11 for the paint, I still have the issue of whether I have any use for that paint and, if not, what do I do with it?

More Stripping and Plastering

Firstly, a quick update on my health - the expected all clear on the biopsy came, so there's no excuse now and it's back to work with a vengeance.

When we did the extension last November, we had replaced the lintel above this kitchen door as we found that the old one had rotted at one end, thanks to the poor flashing on the old extension roof.  This photo shows the door (before it was turned round) after the demolition of the old extension, and the rotten lintel is clearly visible.   This rot was a shame as the lintel was made of three bits (to give 16 inches wall thickness) of four inch pitch pine which still smelt wonderful.  This unexpected work meant that some of the plaster already done inside was removed, and then the rest of the plaster around the door became loosened when the door frame was done.  So, it was back to stripping plaster on Thursday, followed by some more lime plastering for the scratch coat on Friday.  

We have a lot of old doors in the house, most of which were covered in a sort of brown varnish which clogs sandpaper very easily.  At first I didn't like them as I thought they were probably the 1920s version of those horrible cheap panelled white things you get in all new houses and refurbishments these days.  That's probably a bit unfair as, despite the varnish, I've come to appreciate them - an example of why you should never make changes in a rush on an old house unless absolutely essential.  They have four panels with the upper pair being larger than the lower ones; most have a simple right angle recess, but in the lounge and the hall side of the kitchen door they have a bit of ogee architrave (which of course makes stripping more difficult!).  These doors are also different sizes - I discovered this last November when I thought about changing the hinge side of the kitchen to extension door, and measured them all to see if I could swap them around.  "Never assume - check" was the flight safety mantra when I was in the RAF, and it's true for old houses as well.

Since the door frame was being completely replaced, it seemed sensible to turn the door round, rather than cut new hinge recesses etc.  However, the horrible rough white-ish finish now on the kitchen side meant that I knew I would have to do some serious stripping and restoration before too long, as it just looked so bad every time you went in the kitchen.  Mind you, the side on the extension was brown paint and didn't look much better.

Anyway, just after Easter I decided that now was the time and I've done the complete thing over the last two weeks (i.e. slowly).  The old paint was ghastly and probably toxic, so when I used the heat gun and a scraper, I made sure there was plenty of ventilation.  It was possibly half a millimetre thick in places and came off as a nasty goo on the scraper which itself had to be scraped off before the next go.  After that the rest was a doddle and yesterday I applied the final coat (see photo left) which is always the best bit - it's so satisfying, as opposed to the scraping, sanding, filling, priming and undercoat which are all just boring

The result is that it all looks much better and Jane loves it, even though I have yet to finish the remaining coats of plaster. 

Back to Work

Well, I could now give full details of what is involved in the rather personal procedure I went through last week, but I'll keep it polite.  They removed a small part of me and so I now have to wait 7-10 days for the result of the biopsy; however the doctor is quite sure that in his experience I'm OK.  The procedure actually wasn't too bad - it's quite odd seeing your own insides on a TV screen and the staff were all wonderful.  I have nothing but praise for the way I have been treated at the local NHS Trust hospitals.  The worst bit of the whole affair was the preparation for it when you twice have to swallow a solution of magnesium citrate.  If you know what that is, then you know what I mean!  Google it if you've never heard of it. Enough said.

So, back to work after my enforced rest.  The gateway to the back of our house is through a mock wrought iron gate, which is just visible in the photo (right) on the left of the doorway.  I don't like being visible to people in the street whilst I relax with a beer or cup of tea in the sunny spot at the back of the garden . So, at last, I have erected one of my back gates; this one was the one that I obtained as a swap for some wavy glass which I didn't need.  I had recently spent some time re-painting it, so it was all ready. To fit it I had to remove, refurbish and refit the existing gate post which was attached to the wall beside the front door.  The old 4 by 3 post was a bit rotten but I decided to re-use it as I didn't think it was as bad as it looked (it wasn't) and I thought that it might just be oak (it was).  I trimmed the rotten ends slightly and gave the whole thing a treatment of some proprietary chemical which is said to be good for preventing further rot.  I know this isn't very PC in the period property world but I do not want to have a bit of damp rotting wood attached to the house.

I drilled a hole in one of the quoin stones on the corner beside the door, set well back from the edge, then attached the post with a single huge coach screw.  I was then able to drill the holes in the wood for the other screws in situ, lined up with other suitable stones, so that I could drill through to mark three more holes in the chosen stones.  Then, by swinging the post on the one loosened screw, I could drill the holes in the stones, which was a bit noisy (sorry!).  Then I put the post back, attached coach screws and discovered the bad news: the old post was pretty straight and I had made the hinge line vertical as you look at it, but the thing that caught me out was that the wall wasn't vertical.  Jobs are never as easy as one would like, are they?  So, it was again loosened so that I could swing it away from the holes and fit some packers, then retighten.  I did shear one of the 140 mm coach screws but fortunately by the same method I was able to get to it and remove it with my pipe wrench, and re-tighten everything.  To my surprise the gate went on fairly well with the new T-hinges, et voila! It's even horizontal, and is so low that the local cats won't be able to get under it - if they want to use my garden as a hunting ground then they'll have to jump up and over the new wall - when it's done!  I don't have a photo of the new gate yet as it hasn't stopped raining since I did it.

I now need to do that "new" wall which is going to incorporate two lovely stones with pintles, so that I can then hang the other gate (formerly the back door, now being refurbished).  I reckon that I don't need any permission as there used to be a wall there - I found the old foundations in January - and I don't need permission to do a repair.  In any case, no-one could see that part of the gardens anyway when the enchanted forest was still there, as you can almost see from the photo (left).  This shows how it looked in January last year after (only) the roof had been done; the wall and gates will fill the gap to the left of the corner.

However, I think it might be some time before I manage that lot, as I am turning my attention back to finishing and tidying the new extension, so that it's fully useable.  We have ordered some bits of furniture and I need to buy a couple of wall units for "my own stuff".  I know they won't be big enough for everything but I desperately need somewhere to put my things out of sight without going outside to the over-crowded shed.  If you don't have an attached garage, where do you keep your tools and materials to hand?

Diversions from the Project

I've been a bit diverted from the house recently, and find that when I am able to work I don't seem to have any real enthusiasm or perseverance.  Various small jobs have been done, or have been started but are still incomplete, and I've even been doing some serious tidying such as taking the old asbestos shed roof to the tip (all nicely bagged and sealed as instructed), together with a lot of glass from the metal framed windows.

The reason for my distraction has been an unexpected health issue, which arose from one of those good ideas which people have to improve the health of the population at large.  I wasn't aware of this, but when you reach 60 (as I did in February) you are then invited to participate in some screening test so that you can get an earlier (and therefore more successfully treatable) diagnosis of a particular form of cancer.  As a customarily healthy person (albeit retired), I was a bit surprised to find that I was in the 2% of subjects who have an "abnormal" result. "Abnormal" indeed.  Who are they calling abnormal?  I've spent a good deal of my life trying to appear normal - quite clearly I have failed in that - but physically I reckon I have always been boringly normal.

It transpires that only 10% of the abnormal failures actually have cancer, but such analysis requires further investigation as an out-patient.  The good thing about this is that you are fast-tracked so there's no delay.  I had the failure result on a Wednesday, was seen for assessment the following Tuesday, and was booked for the (slightly unpleasant) "further investigation" on the Thursday of the week following.  The result is either available at once (if no samples are taken) or within a week if there is a biopsy required, so that will make just over three weeks from start to finish, including Easter.  I certainly cannot complain about the NHS!

The trouble really with this haste is that it is all-consuming, and I find that I just cannot concentrate on the things I would like to be getting on with.  Mind you, the changeable weather doesn't help; I have been refurbishing a couple of ledged and braced doors which will be the new back gates and, having just started to paint the second last week, I had to bring them inside as it started to rain.  I've also tackled a few small jobs like finishing the grouting in the extension and putting up some shelves but, as I said, concentration on such things is really very difficult when you are faced with even just a 10% possibility of having something life-threatening.

At the assessment last week, the only questions where I gave an "abnormal" response were "have you lost weight recently?" and "do you get tired easily?"  The answer to both these was "yes, because I've been restoring a house!"  I think I mentioned before how last year I was able to get into a pair of RAF trousers last worn in 1992, and I've also told (here) the story of learning to stop competing with the fit 30 year olds taking slates and lead up to the roof.  As far as I am concerned, I am much fitter than I was when I started this project.

I'll mention the results of this Thursday's investigation when I get them; if I have anything of note, I expect I'll start another blog as it could then become a major preoccupation.  NB I won't be publishing any photos of the procedure...

Using my Christmas Present at last

I mentioned my Christmas present some time ago in this entry which was still in its box at that time.  A Holzspalter - a wood splitter, made in Germany. This present was included on my Christmas list as I hope to be able to supply my own wood for the woodburner and the open fire in the lounge.

It is quite heavy and has been getting in the way in the extension as it was so difficult to move in the box with one end much heavier than the other. Anyway, recently I was bored so I tried it for the first time.  Despite the weight, it is easily portable once out of the box as it has a couple of wheels which only touch the ground when you lift up the lighter end.  There's a small amount of assembly work (for which you need tools like spanners, but they provide a small Allen key). There was a slight issue with the assembly of it as the usually hyper-efficient Germans had made two mistakes - one was an incorrect machine screw (I found a spare in my grot box) and the other was that a pair of domed nuts could not be fitted as specified because the stud was too long to fit inside the dome; however, I was able to swap with a pair of stiff nuts used for the wheels as these were the same thread and the stub axle was a bit shorter.

The mains electric motor runs a hydraulic pump which sends a ram along a short track and forces the wood against a fixed splitter at the far end.  The whole thing has a very sturdy bed for the ram to slide on. Operation was quite straightforward, once you realise that the design for safety requires the simultaneous use of both hands, one on a button and the other on a lever, keeping your fingers out of harm's way.  The trick is to make sure that the splitter is against the right part of the wood - ideally it should be lined up radially where there might already be a small split.  Trying to split an inch off centre was a bit problematic until I got the idea. 

I was a bit suprised that the movement of the operating ram gently removed both manufacturer's sticky labels from where they were attached on either side of the bed.  These are the sort of thing that I, if a manufacturer, would want to ensure stayed on my products.

The results of a couple of hours work

We did a fair quantity of wood, but probably only about 40% of what I have from the old trees in the front garden.  Mind you, I know how much wood my two fires can burn, so lots is needed.  The cypress was the most difficult due to its diameter and we had to give in on some large bits, especially if there was a branch joint.  The ash was the most exciting, seeing a ten inch section of seven inch diameter wood suddenly split and both parts propelled forward by four or five feet.  I also had some buddleia, holly, elder and laurel - we couldn't work out which it was which smelled gently of lemon.  Some of my wood was cut before the front garden work last November, and was going quite hard - clearly the best time to split is when the wood is still fresh, so I ought to get on and do the rest soon.  My neighbour is going to do his driveway soon and so I have already put in a request for his wood (holly and dead yew, mostly). I'm still kicking myself for not asking for any of his old wavy glass when he had his front windows done by a certain large company - they just smashed everything and fitted brand new.  I'm not sure Conservation would be happy!

Jane's verdict: "How good to find a tool that even a woman can use". Just stand at the right end!